Nice stuff for only a week! Something you might want to try is adding lighting effects to give the impression that the particles are in the physical space with you. By that I mean adding another emitter that has the Intense option checked, giving it a similar colour to the orb, and letting it brighten up the background video, especially on areas closer to the orb. So the side of your face, your arm, the wall, etc. There are some emitters in the May 2001 library that can be used for this.

You can also use a single fuzzy round particle (use the single particle option) made big to give a glow effect.

If it were me, I'm always a fan of turning off the "preserve colors" option for intense particles. Being able to see through them and having them also effect the background makes it feel like it;s part of the shot.

Of course there are times you really want that Preserve colors option turned on...